They Eat Hearts
by Neon Boom
Summary: I shouldn't be hanging here like this. By now, I should be nothing more than a sanguine smear of blood and brains on the solid concrete below. But I'm not. Someone is holding onto my arm. It's Sora. Of course. AU Soriku
1. For Real, Or Not

_AN: Hey there. I probably shouldn't be writing this until I've played KH3 but whatever. A few warnings to consider before diving in:_

 _1) This is a Soriku story so if that's not your ship, you might not want to continue._

 _2) Trigger warnings for suicide attempt and homophobic behaviours. Please note I do not endorse either of these and advise anyone with suicidal thoughts to contact someone who can help._

 _3) This has been checked for spelling and grammar errors but I was in too much of a hurry to post so might have missed some things. If anyone is willing to beta for me, I would be over the moon. Please PM me if you feel up to it._

 _I do not own Kingdom Hearts._

* * *

 **They Eat Hearts**

 **Tuesday January 16** **th** **2007**

Here I am.

I'm hanging from the highest edge of the main high school building at 14:00 on a not so random Tuesday. The wind is frigid because it's winter now, blowing in from the beach and causing my hair to whip over my face in a storm of wretched silver.

I shouldn't be hanging here like this. By now, I should be nothing more than a sanguine smear of blood and brains on the solid concrete below.

But I'm not.

Someone is holding onto my arm.

 _It's him._

Of all the people that could have caught me, it just _had_ to be _him._

Of course.

His hand is sweaty and his fingers slip over the smooth flesh of my wrist even though he's gripping me so hard I can feel my racing pulse pressing against my wrist bone rapidly going numb.

"Ri…ku…grab the…"

How is he doing this? I must have 10 pounds on him but he hasn't dropped me. His face is red going purple with exertion and his eyes are screwed tight shut.

He's so small. It's only a matter of time before I slide clean through his saturated fingers. Maybe this is just his final cruelty, prolonging the inevitable, considering what I did to him.

I wish he hadn't caught me.

The wind picks up and my body is buffeted like a weightless paper bag to a slight left. It causes a change in our precarious equilibrium and his strained expression morphs into one of abject fear. His eyes snap open.

Blue.

"…Please…"

The word is a whisper almost lost to the howl of the wind but I hear it like it's been shouted in my ear and it's like waking up from some kind of sleepwalking episode. Suddenly, everything is pulled into terrifyingly sharp focus. The reality of what I'm trying to do slams into me and I let out an involuntary whimper. My free hand scrabbles at the sill of the closed window beneath me and my feet kick against flaking stone to try and find purchase. My eyes stay glued to his and although he's obviously as petrified as I now feel, that blue is so solid, unwavering.

It makes me want to live.

Oh God, I want to live…

But my panicked squirming causes the friction between my wrist and his slick fingers to weaken. In a single second, my arm has slipped over his palm bending his fingers back in a harsh snap and then there is nothing stopping me from free-falling as I'd initially planned to the cold concrete beneath us.

Despite my sudden burst of self-preservation instincts, this is really for the best.

The last thing I see is his face warping in blind hysteria set against the backdrop of tumultuous grey clouds and it almost makes me feel sorry.

* * *

 **2005**

I wasn't very good at making friends at school.

I had a knack for picking up skill sets quickly and for some reason, this trait of mine tended to drive people away. I guess that when people make friends, they want to pick people that will be their equals, that they can relate to. They don't want someone that will show them up at every turn.

I didn't realise this at the time, that maybe I should try to play down my talents or something to make people feel more comfortable. Instead, I started to think that maybe I was too good for the average Joe, that the world owed me something better because I was some sort of golden boy, something special.

That was why I joined up with the organisation.

Organisation XIII was the 'in' crowd of Destiny Middle and High school. It was made up of a group of thirteen kids of various ages that lorded it up over the school in matching black trench coats. They were the sort of kids that carried spray paint cans around in ripped canvas bags, that smoked pot by the back wall of the gym and cut class in the afternoons without repercussions because everyone knew they were a lost cause.

I could be one of them.

I knew it as surely as I knew that the Earth was round. I was just that cool.

I started eating lunch by the back wall of the gym no matter what the weather. At first, when they ordained to show up, they pretty much ignored me and that suited me just fine. I was there to bide my time and I was good at waiting. I was good at everything.

Eventually, one of them actually condescended to speak to me like I knew they would.

"Move asshole."

The command was harsh enough to make me jump and it took every ounce of composure I could muster not to show how ruffled I was. Instead, I simply turned a slow glare on the girl that had spoken to me, an unnatural blonde with hard eyes and a mean, pissed off demeanour.

I took my time responding, aware of the eyes of the other organisation members on me.

"No."

Her eyebrows shot into her hairline. I took a pointed bite of my lunch.

"No?" The question was repeated with warning venom and I swear I could feel my insides shrivel up. I made sure to count how many times I chewed my sandwich before I swallowed.

"You heard me," I said.

A collective hiss followed this. At the back, one of the younger members, a boy from the year above me dropped his hood to stare at me with an awed expression.

"Dude, you have a death wish or something?"

I turned my gaze from the girl who literally looked like she wanted to set fire to my hair with her eyes to the boy in the back. It was hard not to stare at the elaborate Mohawk of his hair.

"I just like eating my lunch here," I told him simply.

There was a scoff and another hood was pulled down by a guy with a shock of outrageous crimson hair. He was a high schooler and therefore automatically higher ranking in the organisation than either the girl or the boy with the Mohawk.

He had an easy-going look on his face that made my insides settle slightly.

"Why? There's nothing here. Just us and the occasional fag butts because Larxene and Xaldin are fucking slobs."

The girl immediately lashed out, elbowing the redhead in the ribs for his trouble causing him to let out a reflexive 'oof' and hold his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. His good-natured grin diffused any real hostility in the exchange. It was interesting.

"Shut up Axel!" the blonde girl snapped at him.

I waited until the attention was on me again before shrugging, a vague shoulder raise perfected by apathetic teenagers everywhere.

"Beats eating inside," I told them.

There was a pause as the group considered this and then someone, a figure a head shorter than Axel, held up a hand.

I had thought I was something special.

It was like watching a puppeteer controlling his toys, tugging the strings so they parted and he could walk towards me. His gloved hands lifted towards his hood, dragging the black fabric down to reveal the face of a silver haired, tanned boy probably in his first year of high school. For a split second, I didn't get it. I had thought that the organisation revolved around someone older, probably a 6th former or a 10th grader, not someone barely older than me but then I got a look at brown eyes so light they were almost gold and I understood.

He had this gravity that was like charisma only it was more dangerous. It was like…he had seen things, dark things and if he accepted you then you had been measured against the dark things he had seen and had been found just as interesting.

There was a formidable silence as he walked towards me. The others held back, their heads bowed like reverent worshippers as he stood in front of me, exactly my height actually, and read me.

It felt like he was staring into the depths of my soul that I hadn't even discovered for myself yet and for that split second, I wondered if maybe I wasn't going to make the cut.

When he smirked at me like I'd passed some sort of test, it felt the way Christmas morning had when I was a kid.

"He's cool," the boy had said, his voice a deep and level monotone that sent goose bumps washing over my skin.

Of course I was.

I was with the organisation from then onwards. The other's accepted me like I'd always been there and within my own year, I became notorious. There was only one other member younger than me, a boy called Roxas, but he was there because of Axel. He hadn't gotten in to the organisation on his own merit like I had so that made me the youngest true member. The best bit about this was that the people that I had tried to befriend, that had drifted away because they were intimidated or fed up with always being beaten out, started talking to me like they'd never tried to cut me off. Because everyone wants to be friends with someone organisation approved.

It probably should have pissed me off but honestly, it was nice being so popular.

My life was on a high. My classmates were talking to me again, pretty much worshipping the ground I walked on to boot. The organisation members were nothing like the regular Joes I was so sure I was above. They were…fleshed out…and experienced. They knew about things that I probably would never have conceived of on my own and they were tight – more than friends. More like family.

We spent our school days loitering round the back of the gym. With the all black attire and gang mentality, a lot of people assumed that we cut class but only Demyx, Axel and Larxene really did that. The rest of us actually had dreams for the future. After school we'd catch the tram up to Twilight Town and loiter round trying to find trouble. Most of the time if we were caught, we were called in for graffiti and that was ok because I was good at it and this time, when I was good at it, it made Axel sling his arm over my shoulder or it made Zexion smile that tiny smile of approval.

I really liked having friends. Real friends. People that I saw and that could see me. I didn't even know you could connect to people like that.

Then _he_ came along.

* * *

 **Thursday July 7th 2005**

There were only a few days left before the summer holidays. It was hot. That's the price you pay for living on the beach, sweltering days from March onward, permanent sweat marks under your armpits no matter how much deodorant you use, and a perpetually dry mouth. We were kicking back outside the gym as usual because Vexen wanted to poke fun at the sporty kids and then he was there, this tiny guy maybe a year or two younger than me. He had this wild starburst of brown hair dusted with flecks of gold where he obviously spent most of his time in the sun like a real sun worshiper. He had tanned skin, a baby face and big hands and feet, like he was due a growth spurt.

We all watched him like he was someone's lost puppy and I realised in this weird moment of clarity that I had probably been looked at the same way in the beginning.

At first, I didn't give him a second thought. He was probably like me, wanting in on the organisation and that was down to Xehanort so whatever.

But then his eyes found mine and they locked there like we were polar opposite magnets or something, like he couldn't look away if he wanted to. His eyes were blue. The bluest blue I had ever seen. Almost neon. They unnerved me so I glared at him but unusually, this didn't put him off. He continued to stare at me with this really off expression. His eyes were too wide and bright, his lips were pursed like he was clenching his teeth, his shoulders were up by his cheekbones with tension and his face flushed bright red.

Larxene started laughing.

"Ha ha, I think he loves you Riku, isn't that just about the sweetest thing you've ever seen? It makes me want to throw up my lunch!"

She made an elaborate show of pretending to vomit up her sandwich but then Axel pointedly stood on her foot and that shut her up.

I didn't know what to make of the whole affair.

No-one had ever _liked_ me before. I hadn't really ever _thought_ about that sort of thing before. Love was something that happened to other people. Like natural disasters. I was happy just having friends.

I waited for him to deny it, to vehemently shake his head and set the record straight about why he was hanging around, with far less coolness than I had hung around in the beginning thank you very much, but he _didn't._ He just continued to stare at me with all these complicated emotions playing over his face.

We all knew it was true before he spoke the words but as a general, unspoken rule, teenagers aren't supposed to be so straight forward. Especially not when surrounded by other teenagers with the calibre of awesome that the organisation had. He was supposed to deny it, to reject the idea completely, even if it was true.

But he didn't.

"A-actually, I did come here to tell Riku that I…like him."

And he was. Still. Looking at me. With those too blue eyes and this expression that was all expectant and naively hopeful and I wanted to…I mean, I didn't really…

He didn't even know me.

What was I supposed to do?

"Uh, you know Riku's a _boy,_ right kid?" Larxene drawled out, a lazy smirk on her face betraying just how much she was enjoying this. "I mean, I know his hair is pretty impressively girly but we try not to draw attention to that too much coz it'll probably just upset him."

She leered at me. I said nothing. My insides had caught on fire.

"So?" The boy countered, blinking like this was a totally insane question to ask. "And his hair's not girly."

She ignored him.

"Oh, so you're gay? That's cool. I had a friend who preferred a good bum fuck. It's a shame he died of AIDs like you probably will."

"Shut up Larxene."

I remember registering at the time that Larxene's comment had made Axel mad. It was real hard to rile Axel. If I wasn't so mortified by this boy's confession, maybe I would have thought to look into it a bit more. It's weird though. In that situation, Larxene's antagonism was sharper than Axel's defence, like she was speaking louder or in high def and Axel was speaking with the slightly muffled quality that comes with standard SD. Everything she was saying bit into me, even though it wasn't aimed at me.

"I think you're lying," Marluxia raised a lazy hand to point at the boy who looked warily bemused. "We're with Riku during all social hours and _you're_ never there. That either means you hardly know him enough to _like_ him or you're with him during _un_ social hours."

He smiled then and it was this Cheshire cat smile that set my teeth on edge. He cocked his head slightly, his eyes turning from the boy's suddenly stoic expression to me and I knew then that the unsavoury implications were meant as an insult to me as much as to my admirer.

It made me feel sick.

"Hey yeah Riku, is _that_ what you get up to when we all go home? Naughty boy."

"And here I thought that wittle Rikipoo was a virgin."

Xigbar's catcall and Larxene's response caused this burning chill to roll along the back of my neck like a wave and my tongue felt like it had grown to twice its usual size in my mouth. I wasn't used to being ridiculed like this and I never in a million years would have thought that it would come from the people that I had thought of as my first real friends. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

It was _his_ fault.

I watched him with a desperate, newly budding hatred as his eyes darted over my friends, most of them snickering at my expense. He looked like he was starting to panic at just how wrong everything appeared to be going. What did he expect? That I would just fall into his arms like some kind of swooning princess? That my friends would applaud us and we'd disappear into the sunset to get ice cream or something?

Yeah right.

"Hey no, I don't...I mean we don't hang out but I really do like him…" the boy supplied weakly. I hated the way that his eyes skipped back to mine every so often and the way his face would change into this apologetic cringe. Like he was genuinely worried about the fact that he was ruining my life.

If he really liked me, he would have known what would happen if he confessed like this. Maybe he was just an idiot.

"Prove it!" Luxord shouted out from the back, hopping off of the wall he had been perching on and landing on graceful feet with a mile wide grin.

I was instantly wary. Luxord had a gambling problem. It wasn't just casino gambling, winning or losing money. He liked gambling of a much more dangerous nature. He liked gambling with people. The fact that he was speaking at all right now meant that he was already playing some kind of game. I just had to figure out what the game was before things got out of hand which was what tended to happen when Luxord started to play.

"I can already tell that Riku's getting pissed off kid. You've got, like, seriously bad judgement if you thought telling him you liked him like this, in front of all his close friends, was a good idea. It just comes off as a joke."

He paused to let that sink in, his platinum eyebrows raised in a prompting gesture that made the boy seem more like a feckless idiot than ever. I felt my eyes narrow in cold distaste when the boy's expression slipped from apologetic to a gradual, dawning horror.

"No, this is real, I swear!" he said, turning revoltingly honest eyes on me.

It was enough to make me shiver.

"Prove it," Luxord repeated. "If you're really serious about Riku then prove it. Do something that will _make_ Riku believe you. Coz at the moment it just looks like you're trying to mess him up and that's not cool."

Luxord glanced at his fingernails in a nonchalant manner. Whatever game he was playing, it was going exactly his way at the moment.

I wish I'd been able to figure it out.

"What? Anything! I'll do anything!"

Why was he telling me this? I didn't care whether he was genuine or not. This was Luxord's thing. All I wanted was for him to go away so that everything could go back to normal. The organisation would bad mouth the kid for a while and then we'd forget about him. We had to.

"Well Riku, what do you want him to do to prove himself?" Luxord asked. My head jerked in his direction like I'd been prodded with a hot poker. I didn't realise I was so stiff until I moved like that. My usual fluid composure was long gone.

My mind was working at a thousand miles per hour. I didn't want any part of this and Luxord must have seen that so why was he making me…

 _Luxord likes to play with people._

He was just having fun with this kid, trying to lighten the mood because of Larxene and Marluxia's antagonism. The realisation hit me like a real 'no, duh' moment and I almost felt like laughing. We'd get this kid to do something stupid, joke about it and then move on like I so desperately wanted. Luxord was giving me an out to save face so I didn't end up getting the piss ripped out of me like this stupid boy.

I let myself grin, hoping to God it didn't come off as shaky as I felt.

"I dunno," I huffed out, my voice sounding a little tighter than I would have liked but I was in control enough to make sure I sounded mildly amused by the whole affair. "S'gotta be something pretty big."

There was a mild ripple over the group as the atmosphere changed from a low buzz of hostility to something more excited, an anticipatory thrum. The only ones that still seemed to be caught up in the negative side of all this were Axel and Roxas hanging in the back and being unusually quiet.

I twigged at the time that they were still upset but it was hard enough trying to keep everyone else on my side. I guess I figured I'd have time to deal with them later on.

Besides, my mind was occupied with things I could get this kid to do. If it was creative enough than I might just be the hero of the hour rather than the idiot that received a gay love confession.

Stealing someone's underwear? Nah...too cliche.

Water bombing the seventh graders? Easily forgotten.

The sun was starting to set which meant that the hottest part of the day was almost over. I was thirsty and the discomfort stirred up by this freak had made my mouth feel like I'd been scraping my tongue over the sand at the beach. Reflexively, I glanced up at the old water tower just visible on the far end of town and that's when the metaphorical light bulb clicked on over the top of my head.

"The old water tower. Meet us there when it gets dark."

I let myself smirk when the kid's face paled though he set his jaw and nodded at me with determined eyes. He knew without further instruction what he would have to do. Everyone did.

Once, a few years ago, the water tower burst and the water that had been held there flooded the suburbs. If we didn't live in such a ridiculously hot place, the whole area might have been siphoned off as newly made marshland but luckily, the water dried up within a matter of weeks though the base of the water tower, already built in a natural ditch to accommodate the occasional leak, became home to a fairly deep water well that just never dried.

Since then, kids have been challenged with jumping off of the top of the water tower into that water well in wicked games of chicken. No-one had actually ever been stupid enough to do it because it was basically a death trap but we'd get a laugh out of watching the boy standing at the top quaking in his shorts.

"Oh hey, good call man," Demyx congratulated me as we watched the retreating back of the kid as he made his way from the gym up to the school.

He patted me on the shoulder but like almost everyone in that group, I wanted to know what Xehanort thought. He'd been markedly silent through the whole exchange exuding his gravitational presence without needing to get involved in the day to day exchanges of us mortals.

He stood from where he'd been leaning up against the wall and his smile was all the approval anyone would ever need for anything.

"Tonight then," he said simply and, following after the boy that had been my first ever admirer, he led the way back up towards the school.

* * *

 **19:00**

I wasn't surprised when he showed up in a pair of tatty red swimming trunks with a smiling Mickey Mouse design visible along the bottom right of his cuff. He was shaking like a leaf and he looked smaller than ever out of uniform, especially when Xigbar and Lexaeus took turns patting him heartily on the back and throwing out barked phrases of mocking encouragement.

Despite obviously not liking what was going on, Axel and Roxas had both shown up, hanging as far back from the rest of the group as they could without looking like they were outrightly opposing our plans. Xehanort had already given his approval and no-one could go against it without being kicked out of the organisation. It was just how we, and probably the whole world in the end, worked.

He came up to me before he was due to start climbing the ladder, pulling an equally tatty hoodie over his head to reveal a skinny torso that looked like it hadn't even heard of the word 'muscle'. His eyes were blue enough to cut through the darkness. Seriously, had his parents been druggies before he'd been born?

"I promise this is real," he said and held out his hoodie for me to take like it was some sort of token, like he was the knight off to do some jousting and I was the bloody maiden holding on to a scrap of his shirt or whatever willing him not to get his insides skewered.

Fuck that.

I glowered at him through the moonlight but he was undeterred, simply setting the hoodie down by my feet like some sort of reverential offering instead.

Which was better.

Shouts and whistles followed him as he made his way around the edge of the water well to the rusted ladder. We all watched with this mounting sense of a thrill as he ascended. He was pretty agile for someone that appeared so awkward. He didn't slow down or stop to take a look around, not even when Larxene called out that I had taken my shirt off as well. I jabbed at her but she was expecting it, dancing out of the way and cackling as she hid behind Marluxia.

Then he was at the top of the water tower and everyone fell pretty quiet, just the occasional whisper slipping through as we watched him.

Minutes passed.

He looked small up there but still distinct. His star burst of hair was unmistakable.

He wasn't going to do it.

I turned a triumphant smile on my companions. He had failed like so many before him to do something basically suicidal as proof of a love that obviously wasn't as real as he promised. Even though I knew this meant I was off the hook, that we could have a laugh at this kid's expense and the whole thing could be forgotten, I still felt this sinking feeling in my chest that might have been relief...or maybe...

"What're you waiting for, an invitation? Riku's watching!" Luxord shouted out.

There were a few snorts but then the kid put his arms out like he was presenting at the county diving show and…

...jumped.

He actually jumped.

"Fuck!"

"He did it!"

My heart was in my throat and the hole it left in my chest felt like it was bleeding out. His body tumbled through the air, dropping faster than I'd imagined and his limbs flapped around him like they'd been broken, like he was a rag doll or something and then he hit the water with a loud smack and sunk.

' _He's dead._ '

The thought crashed into my brain like an out of control car and then exploded outwards, smothering sense altogether.

He was dead. He was dead and it was _our_ fault. He was dead and we were going to go to prison for manslaughter or murder.

He was dead.

Why did he do that?

 _To prove himself to you._

It wasn't our fault. It was _my_ fault.

Dead.

"Shit! SHIT! We've got to go! We've gotta get out of here!

"Come _on_ Riku!"

A tug on my arm, someone trying to get me to abandon him. My eyes were stuck on the place where his small body had impacted the water and then something bobbed to the surface, a distinct, though drooping, star burst of dark brown.

He might've been alive.

I lurched forward. Whoever was holding on to my arm tried to drag me back but I couldn't…

What if he wasn't dead? We'd all be okay.

"Let go!" I shrieked and my voice was high pitched with enough hysteria that they did let go. My head jerked back as I fell into a loping run and I was just able to catch sight of Roxas' immaculate side sweep of blonde hair before he was being dragged away himself by Axel, the pair of them disappearing over the furthest mound and under a hole in the barbed fence as sirens started sounding in the distance.

It took me barely more than 10 seconds to make it to water's edge, to kick off my shoes, fling off my organisation coat and throw myself into the murky water but they might have been the longest 10 seconds of my life. The water was unpleasantly warm and slimy with algae. The sensation of it seeping through my shirt might have made me shudder if pure, unbridled adrenaline wasn't shutting everything down but basic functions. My mind was an inferno.

God, I was going to go to prison because I'd killed someone.

I'd fucking _killed_ someone.

I was a murderer.

Once upon a time, I'd gone over to Demyx's place to watch _The Shawshank Redemption._ It was pretty cool but I couldn't help wondering as the harsh red and blue of police sirens started to illuminate the water well and water tower in this awful strobe on and off effect if I was going to end up like the main guy being targeted by some asshole looking for a blow job. Especially when they found out what I was in for.

And the boy?

He was dead.

I didn't even know his name.

When I reached him, my fingers gripped on to his flesh made slick by the gunge on the surface of the water. His shoulder was a hard line of bone beneath the pads of my index finger and thumb.

"Hey!" I spluttered, pushing at him fairly ineffectually so his body spun like a cork in the water and his slack face was suddenly exposed.

I knew then that I would never forget that face.

He _looked_ dead. I mean, it wasn't like when someone sleeps. There's still a tension in their facial muscles. Their eyes move. They drool. When I looked at this boy, there was nothing there. Nothing.

 _My fault._

I heaved myself forward through the water and followed the line of his limp neck down to where I thought his shoulders ought to be now before slipping my arms underneath his and starting a really dogged backstroke to the edge of the water well. There were people waiting there now, adults shouting out encouragements and I felt like crying. They probably thought I was some kind of hero.

When I made it to the edge, there were hands everywhere trying to prise the boy away from me and I had this stupid surreal moment where I didn't want them to take him because I didn't want them to find out he was dead but then rationality kicked in and it was this feeling that just sort of hollowed me out. It felt like my arms were suddenly balloons pumped taut with air rather than made strong with budding muscle and then he was gone. They laid him on the ground to check out his airways and his circulation and someone shined a light in his eyes and I wanted to be sick.

I think I threw up on someone's shoe.

"What happened kid? Are you alright?"

There must have been a thousand voices barking out commands, screaming out questions or yelling about something but that single enquiry put to me in a calm but no-nonsense voice sounded out like the speaker had used a megaphone right next to my ear.

I glanced up at a female police officer and she was already looking at me like she knew the truth so I looked back at the boy who was being surrounded by paramedics with tubes and first aid kits and a stretcher had already been laid out and I just lost it. I could hear someone breathing harshly in my ear. I thought I saw my heart lying in the puddle of vomit on the ground and it was beating so fast I almost wanted to ask a paramedic about it. I opened my mouth to do just that but all that came out was this weird gurgling noise and then I wondered if I had died instead of the boy.

"Hey, easy kid."

The female officer was reaching for me and I remember thinking that I was going to hit my head if I fell over now and that was it.

* * *

 **Friday July 8th 2005**

The hospital was bright with fluorescents. It smelt weird. Nurses and doctors in colour coded uniforms moved briskly over the floor space. People sat in sunken mounds on chairs in the waiting room, some of them with this air of infectious panic, some of them staring vacantly into space.

I wondered where they took the boy.

Eventually, I was seen by someone. They checked me out, proclaimed me healthy but I didn't need a doctor, I needed a Goddamned priest.

Because I killed someone. Aren't you supposed to confess when you've committed a sin? Maybe that's only helpful for the devout.

Once the doctor had finished, I was taken to a little room with a desk and no windows. The female officer from before was there and in the overhead light, I realised that her hair was this real unique shade of pastel pink. She stood off to the side with her arms crossed over her chest like she'd gotten a raw deal, like this whole thing was a hassle and I thought that it should have made me feel scared and angry at the same time but all I felt was this numbness.

They asked me standard questions.

What happened?

Why were you there?

Did you realise that site was off limits?

And of course the real kicker:

Who else was there?

I'd been in trouble with the police before but only ever for minor offences, congregating, underage drinking, graffiti…

This was different.

This was a murder.

It was written all over their faces just how serious this all was so I told them. I told them every tiny detail because I was terrified of hiding the truth and making everything worse further down the line for everyone involved. I kept thinking, as I spewed my guts and destroyed the last ruined vestiges of my life, of what my mum and dad were going to do when I saw them, of the boy's mum having to come to the hospital to identify his body before they covered him up with a sterile white sheet and he was buried to rot in the ground.

I had to do something, I don't know.

So I talked.

For the first time in my life, I'd found something I wasn't actually any good at.

* * *

Dad hit me.

It was a full on strike to the face, swift, sharp and open-palmed. It stung enough to make my eyes water. I blinked burning moisture from my eyes and turned shocked eyes on my father. I'm pretty sure that the expression I saw on his face, a mixture disappointment, barely suppressed rage and, yes, a black hatred that I would find mirrored in my own heart for myself in a few days time, was the start of my need to end it all.

"Get in the car," he snapped.

He didn't wait for me to comply or say anything at all, he just grabbed my elbow through the black of my organisation coat, clamping down hard enough that I was afraid my arm might snap in two, and dragged me to our family car.

I could see mum sitting in the front seat. Her hair was in disarray and her mascara was smudged with tears. Her hands shook as she pulled at a packet of cigarettes obviously wedged into the car door and I had never seen my mother smoke before. Not even when grandma had died.

The fumes of it curled up in thick purple streams from the car window as dad pulled out of the hospital and took us home.

* * *

 **September 2005**

"Hey, don't you know? That's Riku Tonchi, the boy that almost killed a guy."

"I heard he dropped all his friends in the shitter and they've all got permanent records now."

"He's a bully. You'd better stay away from him. He made that Sora kid jump off the water tower."

I was still notorious when I went back to school but it was no longer for being cool. Apparently the principal had made a school announcement the day after the incident so everyone knew what had happened and instead of reverence and awe, people now looked at me with fear or disgust. My friends, the only people I had ever connected with, had dropped me the moment they'd found out I'd given their names to the police. I couldn't blame them. It's not like it was something they could ever forget what with it being on their records and everything. Every time they went to get a job in the future, they would have to explain themselves all over again if they weren't rejected instantly for being involved in criminal activity.

I'd basically ruined their lives.

I saw the boy, Sora his name was, in the crossover from first period to second on the first day back, not dead and the feelings that bubbled up inside of me at the mere sight of him made me want to throw up so I simply turned around and headed to the boy's bathroom on the third floor - the one that no-one used because it was too far away from anything useful.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an isolated incident.

That bathroom became my refuge. I started going there whenever I found the word 'squealer' or 'monster' scrawled across my desk in permanent marker or whenever I passed my former friends in the hallways and they'd shout out something incriminating about my sexuality or my big mouth. Most of the time though, I found myself hiding in there whenever I saw _him._ The initial flood of nauseating emotion I'd felt upon first seeing him alive and well mutated into something else as time wore on, an aversion so profound that I couldn't occupy the same space without breaking in to instant cold sweat, without my hands curling into fists and shuddering violently, without my stomach threatening to eject itself through my eyeballs.

And so the school year passed.

"He doesn't care about anyone but himself, did you know he snitched on his friends when he tried to kill some guy?"

"Better stay away from him, he's a complete psychopath."

"He's the reason that-

I kept assuring myself that it would pass, that the storm would blow over and people would move on. I struggled through each and every day with that assertion on my mind and eventually, it _did_ blow over but I was left alone in its wake.

Totally isolated.

I guess that when people make friends, they want to pick people that will be their equals, that they can relate to. They don't want someone that could potentially get them killed at every turn.

I thought about trying to make some new friends after the summer of 2006, after simply existing through every day watching the world go by through a crack in society but haven't you heard?

I'm Riku Tonchi, the boy that almost killed a guy.

Sometimes I hope, in the darkest moments, when I can't take what I did or what my life has become, that this is all just a dream but then I remember the way that the boy, Sora, held out his hoodie to me and told me with eyes bright enough to pierce the night time dark:

" _I promise this is real."_

* * *

 _AN: Edit 05/02/2019 Story title changed from 'Regardless of Warnings'. Next chapter explains why._


	2. They Eat Hearts

_AN: I forget when I posted last but hey, another chapter! Same warnings apply. There are a whole lot of things I want to say about some of the things in this chapter but it's better if you read it and make up your own mind._

 _Love for everyone that faved or added this story to alerts._

* * *

 **Tuesday January 16th 2007**

There's no possible way I can be saved now.

None.

Yet somehow, he manages to grab onto me again. Like, is he Stretch Armstrong? Are his limbs made of elongating rubber that he can control at will?

My useless, sack of shit body jerks to a sudden, violent stop in mid air and it takes me a couple of seconds to realise that his cold, slimy hand is once again locked over my wrist. My head snaps upwards and my eyes rake over his frame because I just can't understand how or, more importantly, _why_ he's doing this.

My heart pretty much shreds itself when I see him, his body half flung over the edge of the building, one of his feet pressing into the raised guttering of the roof and his other free hand clamped so tightly around the concrete lip above the guttering that his fingers are trailing blood into the weathered white.

He's gritting his teeth so hard, his lips pulled back in this grimace, that he can't say anything at all.

All I can think is that he nearly…

 _Threw himself over to…_

I've fallen far enough now that the sill of the 5th floor window is right in front of me, level with my waist. My reflection stares back at me out of the plain glass and I don't look like myself. I am this sheet white ghost boy dressed in Riku Tonchi's uniform. An imposter.

He's risking his life for an imposter.

My hand is shaking horribly as I reach out to grip at the hard sill but the cold stonework under my fingers feels like new life somehow so I hold on with everything I've got and start to pull myself in to get a knee up.

Above me, his panting sounds out over the wind.

I have to hurry up.

As soon as my foot is in the right place, I kick at the glass, hoping it will shatter so I can properly take my own weight but of course, the glass is double glazed and I don't have the proper support to give my kick enough force so it simply echoes in a taunting way and remains solid. He lets out an involuntary grunt, the smallest sound of protest at the forceful movement testing his grip and it's scary how much I'm taking it for granted.

I didn't want any attention when I chose to drop from the roof of the school, at least none that I would be around to see. But right now, I wish that this dark glass opened up into an active classroom. At least if someone saw me, they'd probably be opening a window to grab at my legs right now but of course, the top floor of the school is an attic space. There are no witnesses.

We're on our own.

I abandon the window, pushing down on the foot I've managed to anchor on the window sill, pushing with everything I've got so the muscles in my leg burn all the way up to my hip and a roar rips from me, an undignified, beast-like noise that might embarrass me in any other situation. At the same time, as I ascend gradually, gradually, my hand relinquishes its hold on the sill and I reach up while he's still glued to my other hand to grab at the rough gravel stone of the roof.

He lets out a shaky breath as some of the pressure of my heavier body is released and his eyes open again, blinking away stinging sweat. He realises instantly what I'm trying to do and takes three quick fortifying puffs before drawing on some new, unknown well of strength to pull on the arm he's still attached to, helping me until my arm is well over the edge of the roof and there's no possible way I can be saved now but I am.

I'm saved.

There's a split second of crippling relief but then the effort he expelled to pull my sorry ass up dislodges his foot in the guttering and then he is the one that's falling instead.

 _His body tumbled through the air, dropping faster than I'd imagined and his limbs flapped around him like they'd been broken, like he was a rag doll or something and then he hit the water with a loud smack and sunk._

His face contorts as his body is yanked suddenly downwards. His hand, still firmly jammed on the lip of the roof takes his weight for a moment but the sudden slip and drop motion is too much and his hand snaps free.

His eyes are wide open and his lips are slightly parted because a horrified expression hasn't quite fit itself to his face yet and I wonder if he looked like that when he jumped off of the water tower.

And I just can't.

I can't watch this again.

My body moves on its own, subjected to a fear deeper and stronger than I've ever experienced. I drop back like an ape using the full length of my arm to stay level with his fall trajectory and in a Tazan-like move that I don't think I will ever be able to repeat, I swing out in a wide arc to intercept him, crashing into his shoulders and smashing my arm down over the top of the broadest part of his upper back. His head hits my collar bone and my world is awash with brown spikes.

The momentum of my swing must be pretty formidable because at the upward pique, I'm able to ram my foot back into a dip in the guttering and launch both him and myself up so that we careen over the edge of the roof into the chicken wire fence that surrounds the edge, the flimsiest barrier in the world to someone really wanting to end it all. The guttering gives out a loud creaking squeak of protest and with a pop of rusted bolts falls away from the building like dead skin.

The chicken wire crumples beneath us and we are left sprawled out on cold concrete and bent metal sucking in air like both of us have nearly drowned.

A second later and there's a loud crash as the guttering finally hits the ground below and shatters.

The clouds swirl above me.

I feel sick.

The pair of us stay on the ground for a very long time catching our breath, letting the adrenaline forge its path through our systems. All I can think is that he nearly died _again_ and why? To save the guy that almost killed him.

Does he think he's a saint?

Does he think he can hold this over me like the water tower incident? That he can rule me because he owns me?

He sits up first, bringing a severely shaking hand up to his chest and patting his heart like he's having a heart attack. His face looks green in the grey light and I wonder if he's going to hurl but then he turns to me and gives me a weak smile. His eyes, still too unnervingly blue, are full of sickening gratitude and I want to punch him.

"Thanks," he says breathlessly. "I thought I was a goner there for a minute."

It just had to be him didn't it?

Anyone else could have found me. They probably would have watched me jump, would have run to the edge to see my body crack against the ground and gone to counselling through 5th period French for the rest of the year.

 _He_ just _had_ to throw himself over the edge and catch me like a complete and total self sacrificing retard.

So I do punch him.

My fist flies true and connects with the rounded edge of his jaw. My knuckles collide and ricochet off of of the sharp bone and it feels good.

I'm. So. Angry.

"You're an idiot!" I shriek at him and the high pitched, hysterical quality of my voice should make me wince but I'm too infuriated to care.

"You ruined _everything!_ I never _asked_ for you to throw yourself over the edge after me. Do you have _any_ self preservation instincts at all? Or are you just looking for an excuse to throw your fucking life away? Well news flash punk: I AM NOT THAT EXCUSE!"

I jerk upwards into a standing position. My legs feel like jelly but I lock my knees and glare venom at my saviour. He has a hand already pressed to his jaw which looks swollen and that makes me feel vindictively victorious. His eyes are downcast, hidden beneath that crazy hair and I hope he's properly cowed, I really do.

"Stay away from me," I growl out, my voice so low and deep that it barely even belongs to me.

I don't wait for him to accept this demand, pivoting on my heel and half staggering across the roof to the door that will take me inside.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get away from the fact that I'm _still here_.

I need to get away from _him._

* * *

 **Wednesday January 17th 2007**

I consider bunking but then the school will call dad and frankly, I would have been better off as a corpse strewn outside of the main school building.

I'm half hoping he won't be there but he's right outside the stairwell I need to climb to get to 1st period homeroom and he's surrounded by a large number of girls from his own year cooing over his face which is suitably disfigured. I completely freeze. I swear even my heart stops beating in my chest and a stab of shame lances its way straight through my chest instead.

I'm half wondering if I can find a way to metabolically merge with the lockers to escape this situation when the voices of the crowd drift over to me and I have to fight the urge not to press my hands against my ears to drown out the story.

He'll tell them. He'll tell them all what happened because he comes off as such a hero and then that whole group will turn on me with a renewed hatred and I will have to relive those first months of hell all over again waiting for the storm to die down.

"Seriously Sora, how did you do it and don't tell me you walked into a door or something stupid because I _know_ when you lie!"

The pushiest girl, a pretty redhead, is standing inches from his face. Way too close. Does she know he's gay? He should tell her to back off.

Instead he holds up his hands in a pacifying gesture, a disarming smile trying to work its way around the epic puff of his flesh.

"Kairi, chill, I jusht had a fight with my brojer and we boj got carried away, that'sh all!"

Oh God, they're going to realise I'm here any minute and-wait, what?

Another girl, an unassuming blonde with a gentle sort of demeanour tilts herself around the redhead, Kairi, her eyes shining concern.

"Are you okay? Not feeling-

"No, I'm fine, fit ash a fiddle!" Sora interrupts and the way he cuts her off makes me frown but I don't really know why.

Why hasn't he told them the truth?

After a long scrutinising minute, Kairi lets out a world weary sigh but it ends with a knowing smile that kind of sets my teeth on edge.

"Well, even if you are fine, you should at least try and play it up for P.E today. We all know how much of a lazy bum you are Sora, maybe you can sleep through 3rd period."

The group laugh collectively and Sora laughs with them even though they are poking fun at him. His hand lifts up to scratch at the back of his mess of hair and the bandage is just visible beneath the sleeve cuff of his jumper, covering the gashes he must have gotten from hanging on to the edge of the roof yesterday.

The sight of it sends a bucket of ice straight to my stomach and I lurch into motion, ducking my head as I pass the group and taking the stairs two at a time. I spend rest of the day in my bathroom when I don't have to make an appearance in lessons to avoid that call to my dad and going over what happened yesterday as well as asking myself why he didn't tell those girls what happened.

Just what is he trying to prove?

* * *

 **Thursday January 18th 2007**

He hasn't told anyone.

I start chancing a quick peripheral glance at my classmates during lessons to see if any of them are looking my way wearing their expressions of distaste or, as I'm expecting now, pity.

No-one seems to care. I am blatantly ignored as per the norm when the class is asked to divide into pair groups to complete a physics experiment. I don't even get a 'why'd you do it man?' from Yuffie, the chattiest girl in our year, as the worksheets are handed back across the lab.

Huh.

It's sunny today and pleasantly mild. When I slip into my bathroom to eat lunch, I find that the janitor has been in to change a faulty light bulb and he's left a convenient step up by the big frosted window so I crack it to alleviate that fragrant high school toilet smell and sit watching the Blitzball team practice overhead shots on the grass by the back of the gym.

I'm not looking for him.

I'm not.

But it's like my eyes are drawn to that ridiculous star burst of hair anyway because I find him talking animatedly to...is that Axel?

Shit.

What the hell could those two have to talk about other than me?

Sora's face is worse today. From where I'm sitting I can see the swelling is pushing up enough that he's forced to keep his left eye closed, even when he starts gesturing wildly, his other eye wide open and still so disgustingly earnest. I try to make out what he's saying by reading his lips but of course, I'm too far away up here and I can't lip read anyway. It just looks like someone saying 'rhubarb' a lot.

Axel laughs, one of those big barrelling belly laughs and it makes me frown because I can't imagine that he'd be laughing if Sora was telling him about what was happening yesterday, even if he does hate my guts.

Of all the organisation guys, Ax was probably the nicest.

Sora is laughing too now and he actually has his hands crossed over his stomach like he's trying to hold it in. He's so animated that he looks like a cartoon character even with the ugly purple/black splodge discolouring his skin along the line of his jaw.

The sight of it makes me feel pretty hollow for some reason and I avert my eyes. Let Sora and Axel talk about what they want to talk about. I don't care.

I focus on the Blitzball rounds but don't actually see what anyone's doing, my mind still firmly fixated on my tormentor and my former friend. Eventually, I'm forced to give in and look back at them but when I do, Sora has disappeared and Axel is talking to Roxas instead.

* * *

 **Friday January 19th 2007**

Sora is a weird kid.

I knew he was a weirdo when he came to confess to me in front of all my friends 1,000 years ago but I guess I never would have realised just how weird he was until I actually started watching him.

Not that I'm watching him, mind.

He doesn't seem to fit in with any one peer group. Instead he flits from one set of friends to the other like the definition of those people known as 'social butterflies'. All the same, everyone he talks to greet him like he's their closest and best friend. I've seen him chilling by the showers with the jocks chatting animatedly about Blitzball scores and sitting on the stacks in the library asking the nerd brigades about specialised books. He knows the hackey sackers and artists. He talks to kids that are way older than him like they're his older siblings _and they let him._ He makes a point of waving and pulling faces at the younger kids who always wave and smile back. No-one picks on him for his Disney themed stationery or the lame ass logos on his bag and no-one, _no-one_ ignores him.

Even the Organisation acknowledges him.

Don't ask me how that works, I've got absolutely no idea. You'd think, given our twisted history, they'd be avoiding each other like the plague but no. I can't even count on that to make my life a little bit more bearable.

I've seen him casually asking Zexion about a book he's currently absorbed in and getting more than a monosyllabic response for his trouble. I've seen him practicing guitar with Demyx though someone should really see about rescuing his poor abused instrument and banning him from ever touching strings again. I've even seen him with Xehanort having a philosophical discussion about the nature of darkness.

I mean what the hell?

He fits in way better with my friends than I ever did, is he trying to take over my life? Then why save me?

 _Why?_

I hate him. I think I might be the only person in the world that does but I do, I hate him. He's meddlesome and far too cheerful all the time and he needs to be ambushed with a comb or a pair of shears or something.

The weekend looms before me.

It's weird because I never thought I'd have another one of those and now, I don't know how to fill the black, empty hours at home. At least at school I've got someo-people to watch.

I pause, pulling back to admire the new piece of graffiti I've added to the far end cubicle of the bathroom. My hands are sharpie smudged and aching. The hand that he grabbed when he saved me isn't quite working properly so I'm wondering if he might have caused it to sprain. I shouldn't really complain, it's actually a miracle that my wrist didn't break. Wouldn't that be interesting to try and explain to my father.

The bell sounds out like a gong at a funeral marking the end of the school week and signalling the start of another weekend shut up in my room pretending to do homework; ignoring the pointed absence of my mother and the pointed hatred of my father. I disregard it, shaking my hand out to try and get some feeling back into my fingertips. Maybe I can spend another half an hour working on this and just claim that the bus broke down when I get home.

"Whoa."

His voice makes me stiffen, the nib of the sharpie paused an inch from the tiled wall in front of me.

Why is he here? This is my place.

Get out.

"What. Do you want?" My voice is ice. That should deter him, it would deter anyone else right? Not Sora, the ultimate weirdo.

"I just...wanted to make sure that you're...alright," he says distractedly, stepping into the bathroom without an invitation.

The sentiment makes me want to hurt him again despite the reflexive ache of guilt I get every time I see the bruise lining his jaw line, less swollen today but impressively black. My muscles tighten threateningly.

I tried to kill myself. Does that sound like 'alright' to you asshole?

"Get out," I command and my voice is lined with so much unmasked loathing that I'm almost surprised he doesn't melt under the acidity of it.

He must be immune to hatred though because he keeps coming closer, his eyes skimming the drawings littering the walls and he has this totally awed, slack jawed expression like he's looking at work done by freaking Michael Angelo or something.

Something squirms through the cold detestation, like a worm through the core of a rotten apple and my muscles relax just a fraction.

It's been so long since someone actually liked something I did.

"Dude, this is amazing," he remarks, crouching down by a drawing of little black creatures I did on the underside of the sink closest to the window. That was one of the first pictures I did after the incident. I was trying to make it look like they were climbing on the water pipes.

"What are these things?" he stands up again, spinning in a slow circle to take in all the little black creatures I've drawn. He's apparently forgotten that he came to dredge up the memories of Tuesday to make my life more hellish over the weekend.

I shrug and my pen finally touches down on the wall again. It is the only indictation he's going to get from me that he has permission to stay for the moment. I will hear him out then he will get out or I will make him.

"They're called Heartless, they eat hearts." I tell him, allowing my hand to move through a fluid arc with a flourish before pulling back and popping the lid back on the sharpie.

Wait, why did I tell him that? The Heartless are creatures that I made for myself so that I had a way to express my darkness. No-one else was ever meant to know what they are.

Now _he_ does.

"What do you want?" I repeat, turning around to raise my eyebrows in an inpatient gesture for him to get on with it.

At my tone, he stops ogling my artwork, his face slipping into this complicated expression. His mouth is a notable straight line of firm resolve but his eyes have this soft light of concern and I hate him all over again because he pities me.

Poor Riku, he's the boy that can't take what his life has become and tried to end it. Better make sure he's not going to try again or my conscience will eat at me and my weekend will be ruined, what a fucking travesty!

I scowl as he opens his mouth and then closes it again, obviously struggling with himself. If this is so hard, then just forget it and get out.

"Look," he says and then pauses to scratch at the messy brown spikes at the back of his head. "I didn't tell anyone what happened on Tuesday and I won't but I'm the only one that knows how messed up...things are."

How messed up _I_ am, you mean.

I really, _really,_ hate him.

"So I'm the only one that can ask you if you're alright. I know things got bad for you after the whole water tower thing but I left you alone because you always looked like you were gonna puke every time you saw me and that's fair enough really but the whole thing makes me so mad because _I_ was the one-

"I'm fine," I interrupt him because I can't hear this after all. I'm infuriated and anxious to the point of nausea. My heart is hot and huge in my chest, pumping blood around my body at 100mph so my fingers are pulsing and radiating.

"I'm fine," I reiterate because he looks like he wants to say more and if he opens his mouth again, I might just kill him after all. "Look, it's Friday and I'm still alive. You can tell your stupid good Samaritan conscience to fuck off and then you can follow the example."

I turn back to wall and I'm hiding from him, from his too blue eyes and his sorry expression. But it's the only defense I've got.

A stark, pressured silence follows this and I wonder if my hostile tone has finally gotten through to this freak but then I hear him take a step towards me and it's all I can do to hold the violent urges in check.

He bends slightly and he's so close now that I can feel the barest tickle of his hair through my uniform.

He smells like apple shampoo.

"You can talk to me if you want," he says and before I can blow up at him because I _am_ about to, he spins smartly on his heel and ambles back to the bathroom entrance.

My eyes automatically skim down to where he was just bent over and I realise he's left a screwed up piece of paper on the step up with a telephone number scrawled very obviously along the inside in the worst handwriting I think I've ever seen.

I'm just considering flushing it when he pauses in the doorway and I spin round to throw my sharpie at him to get him to finally go away but he's standing under the fluorescent light of the hallway and there's something _off_ about the colour of his eyes so I stop.

It takes me a minute to get it but then he speaks and the expression on his face is suddenly hollow and I understand what I'm looking at.

His pupils are dilated.

Under the light.

Drugs?

"I thought about what you said by the way. About how you're not an excuse to throw away my life? Well...just so you know, I think you're the perfect excuse. I happen to like my life so I wouldn't throw it away for just anybody."

He's gone before I can react to that and his absence is suddenly like a black hole sucking me inwards.

Did he.. _mean_ that?

I thought he was just one of these ridiculous self sacrificing types that would have thrown themselves over that roof for anyone idiotic enough to jump but...after all this time, after everything that happened, he can't still…

Something thoroughly dead, cold, probably subject to the onset of rigor mortis inside me takes a breath and it's like...I've never felt like his before.

I am utterly floored.

I'm shaking and the show of weakness is as much of a shock as what he just told me so I take a seat on the little step up. The sound of the paper crumpling further beneath the butt of my school trousers sounds out like cymbals crashing together in the echoing silence left by his departure and impulsively, I reach down to grab it.

His number is obnoxious somehow.

But I stuff it in my pocket anyway.

* * *

 **The Weekend**

There's an old black Masamune in the driveway when I get home which means Sephiroth's home from college.

My weekend just got a whole lot worse.

If I had any friends left, I might have taken refuge at one of their houses for the weekend. I could have spent all Saturday and most of Sunday playing video games with Axel and probably Saix up in his attic bedroom. I could have passed the time watching foreign movies with Marluxia or playing tabletop games with Luxord. I'm sure Demyx would have found us a gig to crash or a bunch of us could have gone over to the skate park to watch Roxas shred.

Instead, I get to spend two whole days listening to mum and dad fawn over my older brother's achievements while he subtly brings up the incident every now and then to remind our parents of how much of a disgrace I am compared to their perfect eldest son.

I pause by the overgrown rose bush to properly weigh up my options. Maybe I could turn around and just head back to school? I could break into my bathroom and go graffiti mad for a stretch. Hey, I'd be properly alone, maybe I could finish what I started on Tuesday without being interrupted.

 _He would be upset._

The unwelcome thought pops into my brain out of nowhere and overrides any further notions of suicide like a fail safe.

Huh.

Was that even my voice I just thought in? It sounded different somehow.

Great, now I'm schizophrenic too.

I huff out a sigh and let my shoulders droop. Being at an empty school is just too creepy. It's like the setting for every horror movie ever. I might want to die but I still don't fancy being the victim of a slasher movie bad guy thank you very much. Resigned, then, to my weekend of imprisonment with the devil, I shuffle round the rose bush and heave myself up the path to the front door, hunched over like my body weighs a million pounds.

Voices filter through the hallway from the kitchen as I open the front door. Sephiroth's low baritone is followed by dad's amiable reply and it makes me cringe to hear the difference in the tone of his voice talking to Sephiroth. With me it's all cold, distant monotone. With Seph, it's like he's still a human being.

I take great care in closing the front door behind me as quietly as possible and dropping my keys into the fruit bowl Sephiroth made for his year 7 tech class without so much as the slightest chink.

So far so good.

I'm halfway across the hall to the stairs and the sanctity of my room when the door to the kitchen opens and I am suddenly face to face with my older brother who takes one look at me and smiles conspiratorially.

"Ah, it seems that my little brother has finally decided to join us," Sephiroth drawls and I can tell from the execution of that single sentence that he isn't surprised by my presence at all. I didn't make a fucking sound. My brother obviously used his spidey senses to detect my arrival and you know what, I call cheating. He shouldn't be able to use super powers for pure evil like that, it's just not fair.

Dad's face appears in the doorway behind Sephiroth and the way it falls from fairly content to downright repulsed when he sees me makes me want to shrivel up and die on the spot.

"He probably has homework," dad says in a blatant dismissal which I am eager to jump on.

"Yeah, homework."

I hold my school bag up like a shield and edge towards the stairs.

I probably do have homework. Not that I'll bother doing it until Monday homeroom but what dad doesn't know won't hurt him any further.

"I'm sure that can wait," Sephiroth tells him amicably, not quite able to mask the vindictive joy in his voice at seeing me squirm. "He has the whole weekend after all and it's not every day his big brother comes home from college. What have you been up to Riku? Staying out of _trouble_?"

Ah, there it is, the first roundabout reference to the incident. These will get more and more on point as the weekend drags on until they'll be discussing it directly over dinner on Sunday. I honestly think Sephiroth just enjoys the drama.

I clam up, knowing that it'll just be better if I stay as quiet and still as possible. It's like facing down a pit bull. Run or fight back and you're in for a world of pain. Better to just wait until he loses interest and moves on to something else.

"Riku has been meeting our expectations of his behaviour," dad answers for me and the way he reels off the report like he's presenting about one of his experiments or a new software programme squeezes my heart until I'm pretty sure there's no blood left in the organ.

"Is that so?" Sephiroth sneers, his eyes flashing with mirth, like a cat that's caught a mouse and I wish I was bigger. If I was as big as Lexaeus then I'd be able to hit that sneer right off of my older brother's perfectly pointed face. I'm sure dad would try to get me done for GBH but it'd be worth it, it really would.

"Riku? Is Riku home?"

The sound of my mother's overly fake jovial voice drifting through from the kitchen makes me flinch involuntarily and I swear, Sephiroth's expression becomes just that tiny bit more merciless.

Against my better judgement, I make a break for it, half sprinting towards the staircase and taking the carpeted stairs two at a time.

"Riku?"

I stop dead halfway to safety because mum's voice is closer now. Angling back, I catch sight of her standing in front of dad by Sephiroth's shoulder and it's the first time I've seen her in about 3 months because she's been away on some research trip. She looks the same as always, her face pulled taut in this plastic smile because she's trying to be glad to see me, because that's what mothers are supposed to do when they see their sons. The truth is in her eyes though. At least dad doesn't try to lie about his hatred of me.

"Are you okay? How was school?"

It's like she thinks she has to be this perfect, caring, 1950's-esque mother figure or something, like she has to _act_ flawlessly maternal or she won't know how to function. God forbid she acknowledge what happened beyond the cigarette I saw her smoke that night, God forbid we actually face something together and deal with it.

No, all I get is a 'how was school?', like everything's completely fucking peachy.

I wonder what my parents would do if they knew I tried to kill myself.

"It was fine," I manage to bite out. The tension in my shoulders is mounting in a warning way so I take pre-emptive action and stuff my hands in my pockets before Sephiroth can see them balling up into fists and declare me a danger to society.

It doesn't matter what I say, whenever I speak to my mother these days, she looks like a kicked puppy. Her smile slips into this tremulous, long faced expression of barely masked sadness and I might as well have shouted in her face with the way her demeanour shatters.

She's so wet now. It makes me want to stomp on the broken pieces of her soul.

"Oh...well that's good," she manages, at a total loss for a way to carry on going through the motions of this awful, pretend mother-and-son-bonding conversation.

I can't take this anymore.

"Yeah, well I have homework so…"

I take another careful step up the stairs mentally begging my parents for permission to end the torment.

But of course, Sephiroth isn't about to let me off that lightly.

"It's like I said, you have all weekend. We should catch up. You should tell me all about your little friend."

Little friend? What the…

"It's so good that you're making friends again Riku, Tell me, the kid with the mad hair, isn't he the one that jumped off of the water tower?"

Oh God…

"I find it truly inspiring that you two have become friends after all that _unpleasantness._ "

How does he know about Sora?

Does he know about what happened on Tuesday? How could he, he was at college…

Unless…

" _That_ boy? Sephiroth, what are you talking about?" Dad asks firmly.

Sephiroth folds his arms across his chest and his smile has this curling quality that reminds me of the villains in the old cartoons. Like Dick Dastardly in _Wacky Races._

"Why not ask Riku? I saw him talking to the boy after school just today."

There is no way he could have seen us through the frosted glass of the bathroom window. And what was he doing loitering around the high school? How in the nine hells can he know about that conversation? Forget killing myself, I'm going to murder Sephiroth in his sleep and bury his body in the woods.

"Stay away from him," I snarl out. Then I blink at myself because I have no idea where that came from. I shouldn't give a rat's ass if Sora's shown up on Sephiroth's psychopathic radar. Maybe I just don't want my older brother to have a new way to drag the incident into the spotlight. Maybe I don't want him to find a reason to become properly interested.

Yeah...yeah, let's go with that.

"Hey!" Dad barks, making me jump nearly clean out of my skin. "Watch your tone when you speak to your brother."

He glares at me and I glare back which is not something I'm usually bold enough to do but it ticks me off that they don't realise what a creep Sephiroth can be. Even before the incident, this was a trait of my brother's that both of my parents adamantly ignored.

There was this guy called Cloud, he still goes to my school though he's in his last year now. Sephiroth basically stalked him through his last year of high school but for some reason, no-one batted an eyelid. At the time, it felt like I was the only one that noticed. I didn't say anything of course because you're not supposed to drop a member of your own family in that kind of trouble.

I wish I'd remembered that iron clad rule when I'd faced the police after the water tower but let's not pick at that festering wound.

We stay in a stalemate of staring for quite a long time. Every second that ticks by, I realise I am probably getting into deeper and deeper shit but no use worrying about that now. What more can my parents do? Ground me? It's not like I have anywhere to go.

Eventually, mum becomes uncomfortable enough that she breaks the heavy silence that's fallen over us all.

"You...made friends...with _him_?"

"No. Yes...no."

Sephiroth is standing right there.

He's a creep.

I don't care.

Sora's not my friend.

"He was just asking about a project we're working on together."

A project. Even though he's a year younger than me and we have none of the same classes. Smooth Riku.

"Ironic that you were partnered with him for your project," Sephiroth jumps in, eager to exploit the loophole in my lie. "You would think that the teachers would be disinclined to pair you two up. I'm surprised that boy doesn't have a restraining order out on you."

"He's not-

"You're not to go near that boy."

Dad's voice is so low I can almost feel the growl of it in my chest and I feel my eyes widen a fraction in cold surprise. The angle of his body has changed. He's leaning towards me in this imposing way and his eyes are almost manic with the force of this command. Suddenly, I can see where Sephiroth gets his creepiness from.

"Do you hear me Riku? Our family cannot afford any more negative attention. You're not to go near him, are we clear?"

He's going to make me agree to this and it makes me so, unfathomably _angry_ that I actually see red around the edges of my vision.

"We're working on a project, dad, it's not like I can choose-

"This isn't a discussion. I am telling you that you will not go near him. Request a partner change, do whatever you have to. I will not have you involved in another unsavoury episode, do you understand?"

My jaw sets against him and his authoritarian dictatorship, against the fact that he thinks he can control who I'm friends with but there's something about the way his aura darkens even further and about the way my mother shrinks into herself that makes me back down.

They're still my parents after all.

"Yes, sir."

My voice is monotonous and downtrodden but the air clears immediately following that simple acquiescence. Dad's stance relaxes though his face remains stonily irked.

"Good," he says, tugging at a wrinkle in his crisp white shirt and running a hand through his long dark hair in a show of regaining lost composure. "You should go and do your homework now. Dinner will be at seven."

With that, he turns on his heel and vanishes back inside the kitchen, apparently no longer able to stomach my presence.

I stare at the empty doorway for about half a second feeling defeated and sick to my stomach with anxiety. Though I know I shouldn't, I let my eyes flit over my mum only to see that her eyes are heart-wrenchingly glassy, like the exchange is going to make her burst into tears and I don't know a teenage boy on the planet that enjoys making their mother cry so I ignore her and turn my attention to Sephiroth instead.

He is looking at me like I imagine I used to look at everyone else, like he is vastly superior, like he can totally do what he wants because he's Sephiroth - the golden boy.

I shouldn't have told him to stay away from Sora.

* * *

 **Texts**

 _Sora, it's Riku. I have to_

 _Dear Sora_

 _It's Riku. I didn't want to text you but_

 _Hi, my brother is a creep. If he talks to you_

 _This is ridiculous_

 _Hi Sora, I still hate your guts but just thought it'd be fair to warn you that my brother is in town and he's a total psychopath. He's taken an interest in you so I thought I should warn you or something not to_

 _Riku here, I wish you'd just let me fucking fall._


	3. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

_AN: KH3 was so good! Unfinished but good. This is all I will say on the matter. On an unrelated note, I'm sorry this chapter was so late! I had a fight with it but after weeks of editing, I've made up with it._

 _New trigger warnings this chapter for mentions of neurological disorders. I think that's it…_

 _Love to my reviewer:_ _ **Yullen Fan**_ _and to everyone that favourited or followed. And now, onwards!_

* * *

 **Monday January 22nd 2007**

Sora is not here.

I've spent the entire weekend considering whether or not to text him to warn him about the marked attentions of my brother but I don't think he'll understand the seriousness of my warning unless I can talk to him in person. I get to school early and wait by the entrance hoping to catch a glimpse of him through the sea of dull faces but he remains conspicuously absent. I wonder if this is karma; that Sora would disappear when I'm actively seeking him out when he was pretty much everywhere I turned last week.

Eventually, Mr Valentine has to come out to tell me off for loitering and I'm forced to make an unwanted trip to the 11th grade corridor at break time to see if I can find out what class he's a part of.

"Hey, isn't that Riku Tonchi?"

"What's he doing here? You don't think he's looking for-

"He's always alone, I don't know how he copes with the ostracism."

It's been almost a year since the comments have come so thick and fast and my mental armour is not as strong as it used to be. The answering nervousness builds inside me until I almost forget what I'm doing here; my mind turning instead to thoughts of the roof and the ruined chicken wire they've probably already replaced to stop kids from doing what I tried to do.

"Didn't you hear? He _murdered_ someone."

I can't take this. I can't. I'll just text him. If he doesn't understand the severity of the warning then that's his problem. Besides, I don't know why I'm so jumpy. Sephiroth's gone back to college this week, he's not even in town to make trouble.

"Sure, I'll take it for Sora this evening, his house is on my way anyway."

A voice slips through the net of hastily exchanged gossip and I pull back from the classroom I'm currently standing beside to see the redhead, Kairi, that Sora was talking to before about the bruise along his jaw. I watch as she takes a piece of paper from their teacher, probably an assignment, before trekking towards me. As soon as her eyes find mine, her expression turns as sour as everyone else's and her eyes grow dark with unhidden loathing.

She doesn't avert her eyes like most of the other girls in her year or the other years below hoping to avoid a conversation with someone proven to be dangerous. Instead, she displays her hatred bold as brass, glowering at me openly until she turns to walk down the corridor towards the music rooms.

"Wait!" I call out, skirting back around a group of people trying to follow me into the classroom. Of course, she doesn't, but I have the advantage of longer legs and fall into a light jog to catch up with her.

"What do _you_ want?" she spits out venomously as I pull up beside her and it's all I can do not to wince at her tone. It doesn't matter though, I'm not here for her.

"Where's Sora?" I ask bluntly.

The hatred in her eyes flashes like black lightning but I stand my ground because this is important damn it.

"Why do you want to know where Sora is? Just leave him alone; haven't you done enough to him already?"

Oh for fuck's sake, I don't have time for this.

"I need to tell him something important," I confess and then feel a muscle in my nose screw up at how childish that sounds.

She stops dead in her tracks and I stumble gracelessly because I wasn't expecting that. It's funny, I don't think I've ever seen anyone subjected to such sudden, explosive anger bar Saix during a full moon but then that guy is an _actual_ lunatic – like _archaic definition applies,_ you know? Her face taints a burning red and her eyes are bright with the exertion of trying to channel such a powerful emotion. Her small shoulders are bunched up and the muscles of her arms are standing out in a full, tight display under the sleeves of school jumper. She opens her mouth wide and takes in a breath like she needs a lot of air for the amount of yelling she's about to do but then something changes in her face. Her eyes clear of something and the anger just... _dies._

It's kind of like...she's been looking at me through a veil, like she can see the contours of my face through the gauzy fabric but she can't see the details and now, all of a sudden for some unknown reason and through no provocation of mine, that veil has been lifted and she can see me.

Actually _me._

I feel the same way looking at her as the anger fizzles out on her face like a faulty firework as I did all that time ago when Xehanort first subjected me to his judgemental scrutiny.

I wonder what she sees that diffuses her like that.

She deflates, blowing out a long breath that dislodges a strand of mahogany red hair from where it falls over her forehead into her eyes and when she looks at me again, it's with this kind of defeated resignation.

"Sora's absent today," she says.

"Absent…" I breathe out the repetition and frown, remembering the odd discolouration of his pupils on Friday. Was he getting sick? Guess it is flu season.

"Will he be back tomorrow?" I ask.

She snorts.

"What do I look like, his keeper?"

And with that, our little exchange is over. She ducks into one of the practice rooms, smiling at one of the girls she knows and there, sitting on the piano stool strumming one of the school guitars, is Demyx.

Breath traps in my lungs and I feel like I'm going to explode so I turn around and head straight to the bathroom.

If I'm not actually going to kill myself any time soon like I planned, I should probably think about working on the reaction I have whenever I see one of my former friends.

* * *

 **Tuesday 23rd January 2007**

Sora is not here today either.

When I go to check his classroom for him, I see the empty seat and catch Kairi's eye. She frowns at me, obviously irked that I'm back again after she snubbed me so thoroughly yesterday but she doesn't bother to tell me to go away so I take that as a good sign.

I end up wandering the halls during my free periods and everything is just a shade too grey today. It's strange. Without him to watch, I don't get to see nearly as much school life as I do when he's around. The people that I saw talking to him are suddenly closed off for me, like I can't see their facial expressions because he's not there to provoke them and, ultimately, it's almost like they don't exist at all.

They all drop back into this general background blur of nothingness and I am left alone as a single, defined entity trying not to be swept into that blur.

* * *

 **Wednesday 24th January 2007**

In the school assembly, there is an announcement about the shattered guttering we broke off of the roof last week and the damaged chicken wire. I am sitting on the bench at the back of the dusty hall trying to figure out if I should try and text Sora again when I hear the mention and my attention comes crashing back to the present.

"May I remind you all that access to the roof is strictly forbidden because it is unsafe. Whoever was fooling around up there could have _died._ "

Would have, if not for Sora.

Curse that overzealous, life loving idiot.

"Not to mention that replacing the guttering that high up is going to be very expensive."

Ah, the real reason that the principal is bringing this up, not because someone could have died but because of the _cost_ of a failed suicide attempt.

This is the world we live in.

He pauses to give the student body the lazy eye. If that expression is supposed to make me feel guilty, it doesn't.

"All students are forbidden from accessing the area directly in front of the main school building where the guttering fell and we ask anyone that actually witnessed the event to come forward with any information about who is responsible."

My heart slams into my rib cage.

 _Did_ anyone else see us? It's not exactly like I thought I would have to be subtle.

What class was below us on that day at that time? Were my feet visible to any of the classes? No, someone would have opened a window to yell or try and pull me in…

What if someone was watching from somewhere else the same way Sephiroth was obviously watching my exchange with Sora last Friday?

If someone _did_ see, why isn't it all over school?

God...oh God...everyone would know that I tried to kill myself, that I almost got Sora killed _again_.

I'd just got used to the idea of getting away with that without repercussions but what if and what if and what if.

I'm shaking by the time the assembly lets out and I have a History class to get to right now but I'm going to vomit instead so I start heading in the other direction to my classmates, towards my bathroom. Unfortunately, I hit the traffic of the younger years being let out the main hall doors and am nearly swept up in the crushing crowd.

The whole situation makes my need to spew that much more urgent.

"Move!" I manage to choke out, holding my hand over my mouth and doubling over as I stagger forward.

"Oh gross, he's gonna be sick!"

As soon as someone shouts that out, the student body parts around me and I see Kairi staring at me with wide, alarmed eyes.

That's when I lose my breakfast all over the pavement in a projectile display that may be legendary long after I've left the school.

* * *

 **Thursday January 25th 2007**

There is a black Masamune parked on the residential road behind the science labs.

I see it from the Maths window and do a double take in the middle of a mental arithmetic pop quiz.

"Eyes front Mr Tonchi."

There are a couple of frightening seconds where I can do nothing but look at that car. My eyes skim down to the number plate, but it's a fruitless endeavour because I don't know Sephiroth's number plate anyway, before they scrape across the Maths room to meet the eyes of the livid Mr Matteus. The room is deathly silent around me.

"Something more interesting out there Mr Tonchi? Or have the fairly simple maths questions on your bit of paper stumped you so much that you've seen fit to ignore them in favour of staring out of the window like a fool?"

There's a ripple of snorts and sniggers from my classmates that makes Mr Matteus look quite triumphant. Maybe I'd be feeling the burn of humiliation if I wasn't having heart palpitations about that car. Masamune's aren't common. They're foreign and difficult to drive. Sephiroth likes it because it's big and bulky and it only handles well for him.

He should be at Twi U right now. If that is him…

 _Is he here for Sora? Or just to mess with me?_

"Uh…"

My voice cuts off the mirth of my classmates. But I have nothing more to say. I'm freaking out. I need to find Sora.

"Mr Tonchi?" Mr Matteus' voice has taken on a sudden tone of alarm. He must've realised that I'm losing my shit. I have to get out of here.

"Stomach ache. I have one. Can I please…"

I can feel the sweat gathering on my forehead where I think I'm on the verge of a panic attack. This must make my case for a stomach ache more believable because Mr Matteus doesn't shut me down right away as he is known to do. Instead he frowns at me in a way that makes me twitch before nodding his head slightly and throwing a languid point at the door – the only indication I'll get that I'm allowed to leave.

I grab my school bag and shift through the staring students. As soon as I've slipped through the door into the empty corridor, whispers rise up like a wave on the ocean and Mr Matteus' raised voice cuts them off.

"In your own time please. We are still in the middle of a test so I expect silence!"

I take in a deep breath and hold it for a moment. I've been drawing far too much attention to myself since last week. I really need to start keeping a lower profile. It'll be important if anyone did see something on Tuesday and decides to go to the principal with the information.

Can't think about that right now.

I start walking briskly along the now familiar route to his classroom, pausing once by the IT block to peer out of the window at the car still parked ominously close to the school. From this angle, I can see the person occupying the driver's seat. Young, immaculately dressed, covered with a drape of long, silver hair.

There's no doubt now.

Class is just letting out when I reach his block and again, his seat is empty. The sight of the vacant plastic makes something cold flitter along my spine, all the way from my hips up and over my scalp.

What if Sephiroth _did_ something to him already?

Honestly, I didn't think that my brother was capable of going that far. When he became obsessed with that Cloud kid, all he did was stalk him and I assumed that if Sephiroth even exhibited further interest in Sora, then that's the sort of road he would continue down. I didn't even think it would be that bad because I figured he's just interested in Sora because of his connection to me. Cloud was an obsession in his own right.

Maybe he's hit a whole new level of psychotic since college.

I curse and start searching the crowd of departing kids for Kairi instead, catching a glimpse of her talking amiably to the teacher and tucking extra worksheets into her heart motif folder. My whole body itches with urgency as I mentally will her to get a move on.

I step in front of her when she finally shifts towards the doorway and she scowls at my blatant attempt to block her in. Not that I care.

"Where is he?" I demand.

Her lips, mildly parted in annoyance, immediately clench tight shut and shrink like she's just tried to suck on a lemon.

"Please, it's really important." I'm reduced to begging and I can't stop myself from scratching at a spot on the back of my hand, a nervous tick that I hope she doesn't pick up on.

Her eyes narrow and her expression closes up even more. God, she's going to make this as difficult as she possibly can, I just know it. But then something seems to occur to her, an illumination of an idea shining beneath the navy blue of her eyes and she smirks instead. It's a bitter sort of expression that makes me nervous in a whole new and unexpected way.

"I'll tell you what: you're suddenly so concerned with his welfare, why don't you come with me to visit him tonight?" she suggests innocently.

My eyes widen so much I'm surprised they haven't fallen straight out of their sockets.

Is she insane? Like, has she been clinically tested?

"Are you serious?" I ask before I can stop myself.

She waits until I'm looking her in the eye and raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

"Dead serious. I'll meet you by the school entrance at the end of the day."

She has decided this apparently. Who does she think she is? Royalty? She's not the boss of me.

"Can't you just tell me where he is? Will he be coming back to school tomorrow or next week?"

She blinks at me, and then makes a show of cocking her hip out and tapping the index finger of her right hand on her chin in mock thoughtfulness.

"Um, no," she answers in a flat out rejection of all applicable questions which is suddenly accompanied by a sickly sweet smile. "See you tonight Ri~ku."

The way she sing-songs my name at the end of that conversational full stop and gently taps my shoulder like we're actually on tactile terms to get me to move out of her way makes me feel very uncomfortable.

However twitchy I'm feeling right now though, it's got nothing on the brutal awkwardness that awaits me after school lets out.

I blame Sora for this, I blame him for all of it. If he hadn't saved my sorry ass then Sephiroth would be too preoccupied with my funeral to bother with the source of my perpetual misery.

* * *

 **15:30**

Kairi is waiting for me just like she said she would be; leaning up against the school sign tapping at the buttons on her phone with a speed that borders on super human. Her bag is tucked by her feet and is covered in a collage of badges and little bobble head key chains. Her coat lies in a heap on the pristinely green grass along with a scarf that matches the blue colour scheme of our uniform's trousers.

She glances up as I pigeon step into view with my hands stuffed into the pockets of my blazer and my shoulders hunched up like a scolded child being forced to go to the dentist. She blinks and then chuckles, nudging me in the elbow when I'm within range like we're old friends.

"God Riku, don't sulk like that. You're pathetic, it's not like I'm taking you to the doctor to get a shot."

"So have mercy and let me off the hook," I rebut instantly. "Just tell me what I want to know and I'll be out of your hair."

She laughs again and shakes her head.

"Come on drama queen, Sora's house is this way."

She bends to pick up her bag and her coat, swinging her bag onto her shoulder with a clatter of colliding bobble heads and throwing her coat around her waist. She tucks her scarf around the strap of her bag and starts a brisk walk in a direction that I've never taken before. I watch her for a moment and consider ditching because this is too much. I intended to have a brief conversation with Sora at school, a neutral environment, before escaping to my bathroom for the rest of the day or, more likely, the rest of the year. I _never_ intended to try and invade his _house._

His house. Where his mum and dad probably have well used dart boards plastered with the face of the boy that almost killed their son.

God, what am I doing?

 _What could Sephiroth do to him?_

Whatever Sephiroth does, it will be my fault if I don't give Sora the chance to, I don't know, mentally prepare himself...or something.

My fault. Like the water tower.

For just a second, I let this whole sucky situation overwhelm me enough to provoke a tidal wave of rage that inflames my muscles.

It isn't fair and it isn't fair and _nothing_ is _ever_ fucking FAIR!

I grit my teeth to hold myself together and ride out the anger, stomping my feet like a petulant toddler and wishing that I had a pillow to scream into like the basket cases on TV. Then I have to sprint to catch up with Kairi who is about to turn down a different suburban road. She gives me a sidelong glance when I fall into step beside her.

"Thought you were gonna bail for a minute there," she says and her tone is conversational even if the sentiment is judgmental.

"Honestly, so did I," I confess, looking back over my shoulder to try and get a sense for the way back to the bus stop when this is all over. "But it's like I told you before, this is important."

There's a long pause broken only by our out of synch footsteps where Kairi obviously wants to say something but then thinks better of it. Instead, she looks at me again but this time, her head tilts to one side so the longer strands of her hair fall over her exposed, pale neck and her expression is puzzled. I want to ask her what her problem is but instinct tells me to keep quiet and let her work it out as her eyes run over my frame in some kind of appraisal. Eventually, she sighs and shakes her head in obvious defeat.

"I really don't get what he sees in you y'know."

We're walking along the top of a hill that overlooks a rusting park and there, sitting on the half pipe, I can see most of the members of the Organisation in their matching black coats laughing and joking as Roxas skates around them like a professional. They're passing around a bottle of something poorly hidden in a grease-stained brown bag and the sight makes me feel so nostalgic that it hurts.

"Neither do I," I tell her.

* * *

 **Sora's House**

Sora, it seems, lives in a rundown terraced house just three streets away from the tourist trap that is the main beach. A broken fence separates an overgrown front garden from the main street and a tired looking station wagon occupies the driveway spot in front of a garage cut off by a flimsy metal door littered with weather worn stickers. There's a scratched basketball hoop sans net attached to the space above the garage door and a number of neglected potted plants lining the steps up to the front door.

Kairi leads the way like this is her house she's just dragged me to and her familiarity is off-putting for some reason.

The doorbell plays a well-known, cheerful tune that sets my teeth on edge and suddenly, I'm stiff as a board standing next to this redheaded girl who hates me. I'm painfully aware that this was her idea and that she is my only line of defence should Sora's mum decide to throw crockery or sharpened kitchen utensils at me.

This was a bad idea. I should have just texted him and forgotten it. Maybe if I turn around now and run full pelt I can-

"Hello? Oh Kairi, hey."

The front door creaks open revealing a woman who looks just as rundown as her house. She's slim and small, just like Sora, with hair pulled back into a messy bun that is just the same honey brown colour as his. Her eyes, unlike his, are a soft greenish grey and are lined with such dark rings that I'm almost compelled to ask if she's alright. Her face is heart shaped and tanned but drawn, the corners of her mouth pointing down even though she's trying to smile as Kairi slips into the entrance way. Her clothes are obviously well loved, a faded grey jumper with a few purple paint splats and crinkled jeans rolled up at the bottom. It's the sort of attire my own high flying mum wouldn't be caught dead in.

I sidle in behind Kairi, hunching my shoulders to appear smaller for all the good it will do. Kairi is about half the size of me. It's like trying to hide an elephant behind a mouse. I've never felt so bulky in all my life.

I feel the heat of those green/grey eyes as they slide across to me and suck in a harsh breath of air to brace myself for the worst.

She'll probably hit me. Like my dad. Except she's smaller so it probably won't hurt as much. Or maybe it will hurt more because I'll really deserve it.

"...Sorry honey, who are you? I don't remember you visiting before."

I blink.

She doesn't...she doesn't know who I am?

How? Didn't anybody ever…

I blink again, then gawp at Kairi who is doubled over like she's trying desperately not to bust a gut.

A frown flickers into place on Sora's mum's haggard features as she turns back to Kairi but in a show of being completely inept, Kairi simply waves her hand at me and continues trying, and failing, to regain her composure.

"Uh, sorry ma'am, my name is...Riku Tonchi and I…"

I wince reflexively after giving my name because surely she knows at least that much but now she has a polite, if tight, smile on her face that says otherwise. I am seriously beginning to question the integrity of our police department if this woman doesn't even know the name of her son's almost killer.

"I…"

I'm at a loss.

My mouth clamps shut like I've suddenly forgotten how to speak.

"Oh God, sorry. Riku's, like, the most socially stunted guy I've ever met. It's too funny."

I throw a glare in Kairi's direction for that comment as she hiccoughs out a few stray laughs and my hostile expression only seems to set her off again. Sora's mum raises an eyebrow but her smile is good natured and I have no idea what's going on. If Kairi behaved like that around my parents, she'd be very severely frowned upon at the very least.

Sora's mum is too human, too relatable and somehow, watching this chilled out adult, Sora makes a bit more sense.

"You shouldn't be so cruel Kairi," Sora's mum reprimands, giving me a conspiratorial look and rolling her eyes. "Don't you worry Riku, you're doing just fine. Would you like something to drink or did you want to go straight up to Sora? He hasn't been up today so you could probably see him for an hour or so."

Something about that statement seems off but I'm too downright scared to think about it. I nod my head stiffly before realising that the question requires more than a yes or no answer. My mouth _is_ dry but I'd rather get out of here as soon as I possibly can. If Sora's mum had even an inkling of who I was, I wouldn't be welcome here…

"Uh...I have a club...activity so I...should just see Sora and then go...if that's ok...thank you," I splutter out and beside me, Kairi may need to be resuscitated if she doesn't take a breath soon.

Sora's mum shakes her head and then, much to my immediate horror, thwacks Kairi upside the head to make her stop guffawing like an oaf.

"Hey!" Kairi protests, rubbing at the back of her hair. "This took me an hour and a half this morning Mrs Tenku."

"And it looks absolutely lovely," Sora's mum tells her sweetly, batting her eyelashes and laughing when Kairi scowls.

Like they're old friends or something.

Too. Weird.

"Stop being cruel," Sora's mum repeats before edging around me to lead the way up the creaking staircase. "Come on up Riku."

I have a sudden moment where I want to run screaming from the premises even though this is going much better than I envisioned. I feel like some kind of undercover supervillain.

God, why do I suck so much? I should have just died on Tuesday last week like I planned.

I gulp down the saliva pooling in my mouth as Kairi, still grumbling about the masterpiece of her hair, gives me a light shove to get me to move.

My feet feel like lead as I trail up after Sora's mum. I keep my eyes fixed firmly on my spotless school shoes, ignoring the way they sink into a roughed up shag carpet. There is a bathroom at the top of the stairs that has a tiled, chess board floor and there are pictures on the walls of Sora with his family.

He's all smiles in all of them, like he's never had a different emotion in his whole life.

I wonder if his mum knows that he's gay…

Sora's mum turns towards a door at the end of the hall, bypassing another door which has been inked with anarchy symbols and 'keep out' signs. Heavy rock music resounds from behind that door and I remember Sora mentioning that he had a brother.

Sora's door has a few juvenile Disney stickers stuck haphazardly around the frame along with a calendar oddly pinned to the outside of his room with colour coded blocks scribbled across half the month. I can't help being curious as Sora's mum tugs on the door handle and note that the first coloured day is the Sunday before he was absent from school.

"Sora?"

Despite the soft call, she doesn't knock on his door before entering and my eyebrows shoot into my hairline because if my parents didn't knock before coming into my space, then despite the fact that it's winter right now, I think I'd rather take my chances on the street.

I'm expecting a harsh reprimand, maybe even an argument but as we file into Sora's tiny room, I realise that the reason she hasn't knocked is that he is still in bed and out cold.

At 16:00 in the afternoon.

He must be really sick.

He is nestled right into the duvet with his hands resting loosely over a Peter Pan motif. His head is buried in about 3 pillows which are strewn around his mad hair like some kind of uber fluffy halo. His mouth is open and his bruised face is lax...too lax...He looks like he did when I dragged him out of the water and I can't stop the shock brought on by the similarity flitting over my features. My jaw sets and I can feel Kairi watching me like a hawk though I can't see what sort of face she's wearing from this angle.

"Sora? Sora honey, I've got a couple of friends here," Sora's mum is saying. She picks her way over the sea of miscellaneous crap creating islands on his bedroom floor to tug at thin Marvel action curtains barely keeping the winter light out.

Sora doesn't even twitch.

Is this normal? I'm a teenager, I like sleep...but this seems entirely too extreme.

I glance helplessly up at Sora's mum who gives me an answering, apologetic sort of look before bending down next to Sora's head and running her hand through his hair.

This time he stirs and some weird, awful pressure inside me eases just a fraction.

"Mnf," he groans out, lifting his hand up in a sluggish motion to paw his mother's hand out of his hair.

"I have some friends here to see you and you haven't been up yet today. You should probably eat something and use the bathroom honey."

Sora's eyes peel open.

But they're not right, not right at all. His pupils are so large that his eyes are practically black.

 _Where is that off-putting ultramarine blue?_

All the muscles in my face suddenly seem to freeze like I've had an injection of Botox. My chest constricts and as a result, my breath comes out in sudden, short, sharp bursts. The room is suddenly too small. The house is suddenly too small and I watch, absolutely horrified as Sora blinks slowly once, then twice, his eyes sticking shut and then opening agonisingly slowly to revolve around the room before coming to rest on mine.

My heart tries to explode but his expression doesn't change – there's no concern for my obvious freak out or even horror that I'm suddenly in his room like this without any prior warning. There's no recognition at all. Instead, I can see something trying to tick over in his mind and it's like watching a computer trying to comprehend a syntax error.

"...I don't want to get up," Sora eventually manages to slur at his mother, pushing now at the arm she has resting against the edge of his bed in an effort to make her go.

Her eyes suddenly have just a bit too much of a sheen to them but all the same, her expression is collected. This is obviously a regular occurrence and I feel like I'm drowning in the tragedy of this scene.

What's wrong with him?

"You have to Sora, you haven't eaten today."

"Okay, okay, just…"

He rolls over and his hand slips under his head beneath one of the pillows. For a minute, it looks like he's going to push himself into a sitting position but then his eyes flutter closed. His chest rises and falls in a deep breath, his lips part and I realise that he's fallen asleep again.

Sora's mum stares at him for a few minutes that feel like a few centuries before she heaves out a long suffering sigh. Then she turns a thin smile on me.

"Sorry, I might try again in about half an hour or so if you want to stay, I know you said you had...a...club…"

She trails off, her tightly wound, stressed expression suddenly loosening into one of mild alarm as she looks at me and I know the obvious fright on my face has gone completely unchecked but I just can't do anything about it at all. Her green/grey eyes flick to Kairi as the redhead navigates the room like a professional explorer to leave the extra worksheets she's been picking up on a desk stacked high with dog eared comic books and a battered Playstation set attached to an old, bulky TV.

"Kairi, did you not warn Riku before you brought him about Sora's condition?"

...Condition? This is...a _condition?_

Kairi doesn't answer immediately, instead bending so she can run her own hand through the back of Sora's hair and the overly familiar move makes me want to smack her hand away for some reason.

We shouldn't be having this conversation here.

"I didn't," she admits. "I didn't think he would believe me."

That's a lie. I know it the moment she looks back and meets my eyes, her expression as frigid as the icy winds of winter outside. Vindictive.

She wanted me to see this without a warning because she knew it would shock me.

Why?

Why is she doing this? A sick practical joke? Is it that she thinks I'm that much of a monster that I won't feel something seeing him like this and she just wanted to prove, to herself or to Sora, that I am a complete psychopath? Or does she just hate me so much that she wanted to put me in the most awkward social situation possible?

What? What is it?

Her eyes burn through mine as I hold her glare.

Sora's mum frowns in disapproval of Kairi's supposed lack of judgement. The delicate movement of her eyebrows catches the corner of my eye through this stalemate though I don't turn away from Kairi to show that I'm paying attention. It's like trying to face down Sephiroth. I've got that same rabid animal feeling, like if I turn away, she'll go for my exposed throat.

"Is it really so unbelievable Kairi?"

Sora's mum's tone is bone-weary and disenchanted to the point of apathy. I'm not sure what to make of it. I've never seen this sort of attitude on an adult before.

"Sometimes I still don't believe it," Kairi responds in a quiet voice and for reasons that I'm unable to fully comprehend, those words cut me somewhere deep and dark.

There's a long pause after this as the tension filled impact of Kairi's words dissipates in the air around us and only Sora's snuffling snores break the silence. Eventually, Sora's mum takes a deep, resigned breath and lifts a small, hard-lined hand up to her face to run her palm along the length of her cheek. Her fingertips skim the rings beneath her eyes in an outright show of stress that my parents would never be caught dead exhibiting.

"Riku," she says and waits until I'm able to drag my eyes away from Kairi to meet her own grey/green. "I'm sure you know about the whole…"

She waves her hand in a circular motion through the air as she tries to think of words to describe a delicate situation. The motion sends a slam of something like realisation into my gut and suddenly, my blood runs freezing in my veins, like the oxygen in it has been replaced with numbing agent.

Because there's only one thing that she could be sure a complete stranger would know about her son.

Please don't tell me Sora's condition…this perpetual sleepiness…this… _helplessness…_ isn't related to…

 _No. Please no._

"You know, the whole…water tower thing?" Sora's mum finishes lamely, a question in her eyes for me to provide a confirmation that I know what she's talking about.

But I can't.

He hit his head when he impacted the water. He was unconscious.

 _Head trauma…_

I told him to jump.

Me.

It's my fault that he's like this.

I thought-I thought he'd gotten away with it. I thought he was ok. I thought…or maybe I didn't think…or maybe…

"Riku?"

Sora's mum's voice sounds urgent but even though she's standing right in front of me, this authority figure that should hate me because I did _this_ to her _son,_ I suddenly can't see her. I can feel my breaths coming out harsher now, in loud rasps that can't be ignored and there's nothing I can do to stop it. My eyes twitch to his still form outlined in the pale light filtering through the thin fabric of the curtains at his window and suddenly, I can't see his chest rising and falling in calm sleep. All I see is his slack face, his hair dripping with algae encrusted water and his rib cage, cold and unmoving under my fingers as I grabbed at him and hauled him through the gunge to-

His room is too small. His room is too small and he's too close; breathing those deep, steady breaths in his death-like sleep. They're all too close.

So I turn around and run.

There's an ear-splitting crash as I careen straight into a stack of CDs piled haphazardly by his wardrobe at the edge of the room. I stumble but I don't fall - simply stepping heavily through the destruction to bolt across Sora's landing and down the stairs taking them 3 at a time.

Sounds of pursuit behind me, Kairi shrieking my name and pounding footsteps. I'm so intent on what's behind me with my eyes glued to the front door that I slam quite spectacularly into someone innocently coming through from what must be the living room. The pair of us are sent sprawling across the entrance hall and a can of Coke is sent flying into the air with a brilliantly comic spray of foam. Somewhere through the blind panic currently controlling my every action, my heart clenches when I think that this could be Sora's father I've just bulldozed into and wouldn't that just be fucking perfect.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," I spew out, throwing shaking hands under myself to push up as fast as I can because I still need to escape this. Please let me escape.

 _Please._

"Ow."

The new voice is decidedly male. I shoot a glance at him and come face to face with what appears to be an older version of Sora except his starburst of unruly hair is ebony black and his eyes are a shade of brown so light they're almost lion yellow, like Xehanort's.

I don't know him but I recognise him, a face seen in an everyday crowd at school at some point. Sora's older brother then? He must've already graduated.

"You need to slow down dude or you're going to do someone some permanent…"

He trails off mid-sentence when his eyes find mine and Sora's mum might not know who I am but this guy _definitely_ does. At first, this horrified shock flashes across his face as quick and as explosive as lightning and then the expression darkens, like storm clouds shadowing a previously clear sky, into unmistakable hatred. Seeing that hatred on a face identical to, if not slightly more mature than, Sora's makes me flinch like I've been physically struck.

"You."

The word is a single, venomously spat out syllable and the sheer, unchecked loathing still evolving on his face is like everything I ever expected to receive but like nothing I could have ever prepared myself to take. It's vast and deep and the blackest black thing I think I will ever experience.

"What are you doing here? Get. The. FUCK. OUT OF OUR HOUSE!"

And he moves. The muscles of his upper body are suddenly taut with rage fuelled adrenaline. His arm draws back. His hand closes into a fist and I want him to hit me. For Kairi, for his mum, for him and of course, most of all, for Sora. So despite my heart screaming at me to run, I hold myself still and wait for the collision.

"Riku?!"

Kairi's voice resounds from the top of the stairs and it's weird that it's her urgent call and not the contempt filled roar of Sora's older brother that re-ignites the fear response and jerks me back into action. I launch myself up properly into an upright position and am halfway to the door before Sora's terrifying brother can change the momentum of his action to give chase.

Within seconds, I've fumbled the cheap latch and have thrown the front door open. The fresh air of the outside world hits my face like an entirely new attack and I vault down the front steps into a dead run down the street.

"AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK!"

The angry sentiment screamed out after me from Sora's front door resounds in my ears all the way back to the bus stop.

* * *

 **Friday January 26th 2007**

' _Survivors of more severe brain injuries are likely to have complex long-term problems affecting their personality, their relationships and their ability to lead an independent life. Even with good rehabilitation, support and help in the community, survivors and their families are likely to face uncertain and challenging futures.'_ – Excerpt from .

I thought he'd gotten away with it.

Or, truthfully, I thought I'd gotten away with it I guess.

How could I have been so stupid?

Sora appeared in the hallways on the first day back after the incident looking as though nothing had happened so I just assumed…

I didn't even think about what that summer had been like for him. How long did he spend in hospital after it happened? When did he wake up? How much rehabilitation did he have to pack into that summer to start school with the same people he had left behind at the end of the previous year?

I was too preoccupied with my own angst-ridden teenage suffering.

Oh woe is me, poor Riku who nearly killed someone and has to deal with the ostracism that comes with being an almost murderer. Never mind my poor victim. Never mind what he had to go through or what he's still dealing with. Never mind that he might _look_ fine but might _not_ be fine.

Did I ever really _look_ at him? Or anyone besides myself for that matter?

God, I hate myself, I really really do. To reiterate Kairi's words, I don't know what he sees in me.

"I hoped you'd be in school today."

Her voice is an unwelcome interruption of the rain rhythmically pounding the windows of the empty IT room I've chosen for my refuge this morning. It's first period so technically, I should be in Maths learning about some complex irrational number equations or something but instead, I cut class to come and research what I could about head injuries to understand exactly what it is that Sora has to live with because of me.

It's like a compulsion.

I guess Kairi cut class to come and find me and chew me out properly for running away like a coward yesterday. Which is fair enough, I shouldn't have run.

"Hey," I greet dejectedly, pushing on the dusty radiator beside me so the chair swivels round and I'm facing her in the appropriate head on manner. If I'm going to have my ass handed to me, I should at least have the balls to face the music.

I'm expecting her to look as livid as Sora's brother did yesterday. I'm fully prepared for her to stride the length of the IT room and slap me straight across the face with a razor-edged palm and tears in her eyes. But I guess she isn't one for theatrics. There is strain on her face as she sidles, almost sheepishly into the room, and an expression that keeps changing. Sometimes it's anger, sometimes guilt (I've seen that in the mirror enough times to recognise it straight off) and sometimes maybe even a little sympathetic. It's like she's at war with herself.

She opens her mouth and takes a forceful breath. I can sense the tirade on the tip of her tongue but instead of letting loose, she blows out a colossal breath of air that causes a wayward strand of dark red hair to fly up and hover in the air for a moment.

I tilt my head to one side and feel the frown pull at my features despite myself.

The change in my expression causes her to roll her eyes and suddenly, I'm kind of aware that we seem to be having an entire conversation of some sort without uttering a word.

Huh.

"Look…I…I still don't…I mean…I guess…argh, this is harder than I thought it would be."

I watch dumbfounded by this girl at a loss for words as she squeezes her eyes shut and scratches at the strands of hair resting over her ears in a show of frustration that I've seen Sora do on occasion. I wonder if he picked the habit up from her or vice versa.

When she opens her eyes again to find me still watching her intently, she's unable to keep eye contact. Her gaze slides across to the computer and the open website on the screen instead. Suddenly, all those complex emotions seem to level into some kind of emotional flat-line.

"Kleine-Levin syndrome."

"What?" The word is reflexive, popping out of my mouth as my frown deepens.

"Just look it up," Kairi tells me.

My eyes narrow because I don't trust her after what she pulled yesterday but there is something…haunted now about the way her eyes remain fixated on the screen. Maybe it's just the way the light from it is illuminating her face from the underneath casting shadows over the top part of her face. I swivel back to the keyboard just the same and my fingers run over the keys.

' _Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS) is a rare and complex neurological disorder characterized by recurring periods of excessive amounts of sleep, altered behaviour, and a reduced understanding of the world.'_ \- Excerpt from

I can feel my eyes widening as I read. My jaw clenches with tension and causes my lips to become a hard line.

"This is what Sora has?" I ask. My voice is so soft I can hardly hear myself over the rain.

Kairi nods. Once. Apparently she's unable to vocalise an affirmative. Her eyes are shimmering threateningly against the light from the screen and I try not to let that scare the living shit out of me. I have no idea what to do with a crying girl. Especially not one as badass as Kairi. And especially not when I, myself, am feeling so...

I decide to try and give her a moment to collect herself, shifting my attention back to the screen and reading further.

"How long will he sleep for?" I ask her, my eyes stalling and my breath hitching in my throat on some weird unformed protest when I read that it could be months before he's back to his usual weirdo, hyper self.

Months…

Sleeping his life away…because of me.

What am I, the fucking dragon bitch out of that Disney movie: _Sleeping Beauty?_

Kairi shrugs. It's a jerking, defensive movement made out of bitterness that makes my insides shrink up with the usual cocktail of guilt, shame and self-detestation. The mixture is somewhat more potent than normal; perhaps now with the added olive of humility in light of knowing the truth about how people are still hurting because of me and my stupidity.

"It varies," she tells me, her voice sounding like gravel slipping through a sieve where she's still trying to hold it together. "Sometimes he sleeps for a week, sometimes 2. On average, he's usually back to normal after 10 days."

Average. Recurring bouts of excessive sleeping. How many of these…'episodes' has he had since the water tower?

How scared was he when it happened for the first time?

…How could he save me after what I did to him?

I flop back in my computer chair and my hands slide off of the keys on the keyboard to swing uselessly by my side. My eyes grate up towards the ceiling where I can see the off-putting mustard brown stain in the MDF ceiling tiles where the upstairs bathrooms obviously flooded at some point.

"Does this happen a lot?" I ask monotonously.

How much school has he slept through already? How hard is it for him to try and keep up with everyone else?

"Every 2 or 3 months," Kairi confirms, her voice a little stronger now.

The rain suddenly increases in intensity. The fat drops bounce away from the window pane like bullets. It fills the silence that falls between us as my mind slices itself open on the information I've received about Sora's reality and Kairi watches me with her burning gaze, making her judgements.

Eventually, she sighs, and the sound is so full of the same disenchanted weariness that Sora's mum was afflicted with that I can't help but pay attention to her. Her eyes are on the rain now, staring into the gloom at something I can't see and she looks so much older.

"Riku, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Sora's condition before I took you to see him. That was unnecessarily mean."

I blink at the apology, aware that my face is falling into something gracelessly gormless but I really can't believe what I'm hearing out of the blue like this.

She's honestly apologising?

"I shouldn't have taken you to see him in the first place. He'll be mad at me when he comes back to school."

She chuckles lightly but the smile is tremulous on her face and the sound is bittersweet.

"I…" Her shoulders square up and her expression screws up with the tension. Her head flicks round so her eyes meet mine and it's like meeting the eyes of a snake. I couldn't look away if I wanted to.

"I still don't like you. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive your involvement in what happened to Sora but…I can tell that you never actually meant for him to get hurt like he did."

I-wait, what?

What?

"You wouldn't be beating yourself up so much about all this otherwise, right?"

It's true. I _didn't_ mean for him to get hurt like he did. I just wanted to make fun of him quaking in his Mickey Mouse trunks at the top of the water tower for a bit. That doesn't mean that I'm suddenly absolved of guilt. The whole thing was still totally my fault but…but…

But.

Wow.

Kairi rolls her head over the reinforced line of her shoulders, clearly struggling with whatever it is she's going to say next and totally oblivious to the fact that my entire _universe_ may have just shifted with her revelation.

Maybe I'm not a murderer…or a potential murderer…or whatever. Maybe I'm not dangerous, just really, really stupid.

Maybe I'm not the awful monster everyone says I am. Maybe I'm just a guy.

"I didn't mean to make you feel worse than you clearly already do so I was wondering if I could take the message you never got to leave with Sora yesterday to make it up to you a little bit."

Sephiroth.

In light of what I found out about Sora and the prompt, petrifying need to escape, I totally just up and _forgot_ about Sephiroth.

Proven hypothesis: I'm just really, really stupid.

"Uh…"

The whole point of me delivering the message in person is so he'll understand the importance of it without disregarding it as junk mail from a total lunatic. But then I doubt I'll be able to get within 30 feet of his house again before all hellfire rains down on my head and who knows how long he'll be sleeping for. Just my luck this will be the one time he sleeps for like 3 months straight rather than his usual 10 days or whatever. I could just wait until he gets back to school but if I tell Kairi…

If I tell Kairi, I actually don't think she'll throw the information away just because it's come from me, Riku Tonchi, 'the _murderer'_.

The thought of it actually makes me feel... _something…positive._ Something positive.

"Uh…it's just…my brother's in town and he saw us talking the other day. I just wanted Sora to watch his back because Seph's not…"

' _He's not a nice guy._ '

The words hang unspoken in the air and for a minute, I'm afraid that she can't read the distasteful implications of my lame sentence trail off and she's going to make me say out loud that my brother is a total mercenary. But then something like sombre understanding dawns in her eyes and she nods once, the movement stiff with the pressure of the message.

"Alright: 'watch out for Riku's brother'. I'll pass it along when I take his extra worksheets this weekend, alright?"

I close my eyes and relish in the feeling of being able to share at least this burden with another person. It's...well, I don't think I've felt this positively about anything in years. It's awesome.

"Thank you," I breathe out, my voice full of unchecked gratitude. The intensity of it makes me cringe inwardly but Kairi doesn't even bat an eyelid.

As if on a perfect timer with the natural end to our conversation, the bell rings out to signal the end of first period. The sound is vaguely muffled by the continuing barrage of rain on the windows and the maze of compact computer desks rammed into such a small space. Kairi glances up at the space above the door where the old metal bell vibrates before turning eyes brimming with indecision back on me again. I watch, mildly wary, as she opens her mouth and closes it again in a rather realistic impression of one of those bottom feeder fish.

I've noticed that she kind of does this a lot, the whole opening her mouth to speak and then holding herself back thing. I wonder if she's trying to say something else that will change the axis of the universe but I'm too scared to ask.

In the end, as the tinny sound of the bell abruptly cuts off into heavy silence, she decides against saying whatever it is she's been fighting to say. She shakes her head in a weary manner instead and twists herself back towards the door. I keep my gaze on her as she makes her way across the room, her footsteps ninja light and dainty on the scuffed floor. The bobble heads on her bag clack together as she pauses just before reaching for the door handle and her hair whips out as she turns partially back so she's in profile and I am graced with the clear gaze of a single dark blue eye.

"I'll see you later Riku."

I blink and raise a hand in a stiff, half-hearted wave but she doesn't stick around long enough to see that and I don't really blame her.


End file.
